RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 22] Echoes of the Past

Scout Ship - Maintenance access tunnels

Hanako crawled forward through the service tunnel under the cargo bay, moving along the inside of the ship's hull with a combination of Nekovalkyrja hovering and pawing her gloved hands and feet along the metal floor. After opening another hatch she reached the scout ships's environmental systems. She looked at them as best she could with her helmet and pistol lights, and they checked out. "Away team, this is Hanako. The environmental systems seem fine, but the power to them is switched off. We need either ship power to be restored or to hook up an external generator. Has anyone reached the bridge, yet? I have a bad feeling about this."

Scout Ship - Generator Room

The ship's aether generators stood before Tsuguka. They appeared to have been disconnected from the ship's computer network and from the power conduits. They don't running and the room was dark, like the rest of the ship. As Tsuguka looked around, she saw a dead Star Army technician in a bodysuit floating up near the ceiling with a severed Mishhuvurthyar tentacle impaling her corpse from her bottom to her forehead like a kabob.

Eucharis Cargo Bay

Mitsuko found that the items matched Uesu's personal fleet, a group of 300,000 ships that left with the former Emperor. She found a lot of related news articles, too. She saw how he had been part of PNUgen Corporation during the time it had created the Great Plague of YE 08. She also saw how he had named Motoyoshi Katsuko as Empress instead of Empress Himiko, and how he had left a trail of destruction that expedited the end of the First Mishhuvurthyar. This all happened in YE 30, so the ship the away team was exploring had been here for 6 years. She found that it had never been officially named. Perhaps they could come up with one?

Scout Ship - Port Generator Room

The red neko did her best to ignore the body, but the semi-preservation of the corpse made the sight all the more horrible. Her gut churned as certain realizations became obvious... There weren't many bodies because the ship had clearly been boarded. That's why the food was left behind, too. Maybe they were the same crew that she found bits of in the torture cells... Well, she grimly hoped that they were. As vile as it was, at least their pain was cut short.

Her vision floated towards the generator as Hanako's voice broke her train of thought. Tsuguka wasn't exactly an expert on ship systems, particularly archaic ones from before she was born, but the bayonet-socket arrangement on the power cables looked simple enough... And yet, why had they been unplugged in the first place? Why would somebody do that whilst they were being boarded? Was that why they were being boarded?

"I'm looking at the port side aether generator, Shosho." Her solemn voice sounded out, flowing into the ears of the entire team. "Looks like... Looks like somebody died unplugging the thing... Is there any way we can access the computer without the power turned on, Tankyusha-Hei?..."

Scout Ship - Bridge

The bridge wasn't far from the tube that he used to board with, so Tankyusha headed there first. "Shosho, this is Tankyusha. I'm entering the bridge now."

He drifted forward, twitching his body this way and that to adjust his course. The ship's Megami unit was on the other side of the wall before him, so this seemed as good a place as any to plug in.

Catching hold of a nearby railing, he swung himself next to an access panel he identified from his earlier pull of the ship's schematics. The panel seemed to fall away the wall with a simple wave of his hand - a keen eye would've caught the tiny flashes of light at the screws holding it in place. "Tsuguka-Hei, I'm going to interface with the ship's computers directly. I should be able to provide enough power for basic functions, but the environmental functions, lighting, and so on would be too much risk to my operational parameters."

He pulled two wires out of the BANGLE on his right wrist. One was beefier than the other - that one he hooked into one of the power outlets. The android gave the system a little juice to see what happened and nothing seemed to blow up. He kept the amperage low to be safe. The next wire plugged into one of the ship's computer ports. Layers of protection were in place before he ever plugged it in, but he isolated his BANGLE from the rest of his systems and put a strict accept-only policy in place on incoming data. No reason to let some phantom from yesteryear go rampaging through his head.

Let's see what we've got here.. he thought to himself, reaching out with digital fingers.

P.A. Bay / Eucharis::

Aikiko listened in on the chatter over the team radio. Her curiosity was getting the better of her. She looked thoughtful as she looked at the choice of gear to bring. She wished she could wear her Mindy for the Manipulators. But would there be room to maneuver? She decided on wearing AMES suit with a Type 28 Nekovalkyrja Sub-machinegun

She outfitted a backpack with her EOD Kit. Extra magazines for the sub-machinegun; along with a few nasty surprises. Once got her new load out finished, Aikiko climbed into her AMES. Double checking everything, she slings the pack on under the life support pod on her back; slings the Type 28 so it hangs in front with the barrel pointing towards the deck.

Once geared up, Aikiko activates her com on team tac freq. “Tugs-Hei, Akiashiro. Coming to join you on the ship.” She sounded very calm and rested as she processed herself over to the scout ship and entered.

Scout Ship::

Aikiko made her way through the ship, taking note on how things were laid out and floating in the air. She carefully lowered stuff that was in the air to the side and to the deck. She brought up the schemitics of the scoutship and overlaid it with the Away Team's position. She moved to a central location to be able to get to anyone that needed help quickly.

Dirjon followed the android through the forward hatch as his DataJockey synced up with the team, becoming his radio. In training there had been simulations involving old and foreign technology so the ship wasn't anything bizarre to him.

After a brief read-over of the recorded dialog he got the point. "Shôshô Hanako, my name is Santô Hei Dirjon Ulvson. I just arrived an I'm mostly up to speed on the situation. Would you like me to restore power or unlock and investigate the intel office for clues?"

He followed Tank to the bridge as he spoke so as to at least help with covering him.

Scout Ship - Bridge

He reached out and got hit with a sensation like a child's hand getting slapped when it went for the cookie jar. Tankyusha had got some information from the ship before the nearby capacitor overloaded, sending sparks and smoke into the air. One of the flames tumbled by, forming into a neat sphere, then flitted away like a jellyfish. The android frowned at the predicament - if he yanked what little power was still getting to the ship's systems he might not get them back. Too many variables. The panel was a bit far away, though.

Then again.

The Shosho had yet to acknowledge the new engineer, but given the current situation, he might as well let him be useful.. "Dirjon-Hei, could you take care of that? I'm not sure what went wrong, but I take it that it doesn't appreciate having current run through it."

Eucharis Recreational Room

Tapping her foot, Hisoka was standing alone in the ship's rec room, Aikiko having left a few moments ago. "Shosho-sama?" Hisoka asked into her device. "Akishiro-san has left the room, I couldn't properly debrief her because the standing medic on deck was nowhere nearby to screen her."

Scout Ship - Bridge

At that point, Tankyusha and/or Dirjon noticed one of the panels on the bridge had activated, and was displaying, in bright red, a screen that said "SELF DESTRUCT IN PROGRESS - TIME REMAINING 00:00." Underneath there was a small error message saying "Error: Communications failure with ship aether generators. Please reconnect for self-destruct to continue." Certain things began to click. It wasn't like the Star Army to just leave ships abandoned.

Scout Ship - Maintenance Tunnel

Hanako was bombarded with messages but she was busy crawling around the ship so she just sent, "Acknowledged," in response to everything. She passed through three more hatches and reached the vertical ladder near the forward lift. Seeing the tunnel forward to the sensor systems, she recalled how the computers up there could be used as backups to the MEGAMI and how they'd done that in one of the Elysian wars on the YSS Yui. But for now they needed to handle the power situation. "Tsuguka, the MEGAMI probably has a backup power generator. I am heading to it now."

Scout ship, bridge

Dirjon pulled the panel off of the gunner control station and carefully removed its capacitor. With the item free he brought it to Tank and began plugging it in, moving one wire from the old capacitor to the new one to make sure each wire found the right places. The screen came back with a self destruction failure message that made us relieved to not have power.

After hearing Hanako inform Tsuguka of her intentions Dirjon informed her of the developement. "Ulvson here, the self destruct protocol is active, ma'am. I'd advise disarming it before starting any generators."

"Let me know if you need me. I'll be opening the intel office," Dirjon informed Tank, then mused,"It seems like they were boarded but there should be more interior damage."

He noticed and nodded to Aikiko as he passed her to throw his duffle bag up the tube to the YSS Eucharis, keeping his toolkit with him. Having a soldier nearby was reassuring despite nothing on the ship being alive... Or so he thought.

Next he drifted to the Intel office and set his magnetic boots on the metallic wall opposite the heavy pneumatic door. Should the gravity be restored he would be a wonderful example of where you shouldn't stand while servicing a space ship. He reached up, relative to himself, and opened the service panel for the door controls, plugging his pistol's charging cable into the system followed by his DataJockey much like Tank had done with his arm.

By this point in time the security codes had long been replaced and given to repair staff which made the door easy to unlock. Opening the door was the real trick. With his toolkit strapped to his side he removed a pry bar, disconnected his pistol and moved to put his feet back on the floor as he pried the door open from the center of the split doors.

Central corridor::

Aikiko listened in on the conversation between the Shosho and the others. This was sounding like a successful attempt to board the ship by the enemy of Yamatia. Bypassed the auto-destruct by disconnecting the source of the explosive, Aether Generators. She moved about looking thoughtful. A ship with air, but no environmentails working. Nearly in pristine conditions. Everyone scattered about the ship. Salvaging ships and equipment long out of date. It was standard pratice amongst star empires after battles to salvage what they could. This area looked like it had been picked over a bunch of time. But this scout ship was pretty much left alone. Something was out of place. It tickled her mind.

She nodded to Dirjon when he passed by her. But seamed occupied with deep thought. She took off through the ship.

Starboard Corridor Near the Stasis Room::

She moved towards the cold storage and stasis area's of the ship. From what she had explored of the hull on the outside it was intacted except for the Crew kitched and Dining area. But there had been a blank spot on the schemetics near the statis chamber. She moved with purpose to the starbaord corridor and headed to the area where there could be something of interest. She moved cargo away from the corridor's starboard wall and stacking it against the opposite wall. ...

Portside corridor

Tsuguka softly exhaled and closed her eyes, watching the blips of her team mate's registry markings float around a little blue wire frame starship inside of her head. What should they do next? It didn't seem like the crew had time to set up booby traps before they were taken over.

"...Forgive my insinuation, but is that wise, Shosho Ketsurui?" She spoke softly but sternly. Her hand reflexively moved to sweep some stray hairs out of her vision, but it just bonked into the side of her helmet. The red neko glared at it disapprovingly, then continued. "It could have been a viral attack on the computer that caused them to unplug everything in the first place... Then, that's when they got boarded."

There were too many variables to be sure, but that seemed the most logical. If the mishu simply barged in, and the crew themselves attempted to activate the self destruct, then why wasn't there more exterior damage?... Her limbs did their own thinking again, and took her into the access tunnel for the port side continuum distortion drive. If they could confirm some kind of damage to the CFS, that would answer a lot of questions.

"I'm going into the port access shaft." Grunts of exertion followed, as she had to yank the unpowered cover hatch open. "Somebody needs to check out the starboard side. Can you get on that, Akiashiro-Hei?... Santo Hei Ulvson, too, if you are not too busy."

It seemed like a very strange coincidence that this man should just turn up out of the blue, especially somewhere as remote and desolate as the Splorfin system. But there wasn't time to question him now, so keeping at least one other soldier around him would have to suffice.

Scout Ship - MEGAMI Room

"It is possible, but I have never seen one affect a starship with a Kessaku AI before," Hanako replied to Tsuguka. She switched on the small aether power system in the computer room and began typing commands into an access terminal. "Mmm...hmm. From what I am seeing, the ship AI is not present at all. It appears someone has removed the entire module. If the ship was abandoned, it is possible that one of the crew may have taken it. Alternatively, Mishhuvurthyar survivors might have taken it for some reason. In any case, I have just cleared the self-destruct and I'm rebooting the whole system. It will take a few minutes. In the meantime, the generators should now be safe to activate," Hanako told the team. "While I am working, I am interested to hear your theories on what happened here."

Scout Ship - Port Engine - Interior

Tsuguka felt another transfer of air pressure as the hatch opened and the air started escaping from the ship. Her lights revealed a gray maintenance area full of cables and wires and blackened marks. A series of holes about the diameter of a soda can lanced through the aft area where a large number of manual dials and meters for the Ke-ED-2430cq rotary continuum distortion engine. There were two empty fire extinguishers floating in the the air. It was quickly becoming clear that anything on the aft of the ship was pretty shot up.

Scout ship, door to Intel Office

Damn, so close... he thought to himself as he removed the pry bar from the door. Dirjon returned the pry bar to his tool bag and his DataJockey to its protective sleeve before moving on.

"Copy that, ma'am. Proceeding to the starboard generator room," he complied as he began floating toward his afore mentioned destination. The situation struck him as odd. The ship wasn't beyond repair and a military ships armory is always stocked when it goes for a drive. The idea that it was untouched sent chills down his SPINE. He got an idea. "Shôshô Hanako, what if this ship was moved here?" He asked, then explained further, "what if this ship was commandeered, flown to this location and disabled for some kind of trap? Could there be an enemy vessel monitoring us?"

He grabbed the railing and swung himself into a corridor bringing him to the starboard generator. Powering the keypad with his pistol again he began typing in common maintenance codes until the door locks disengaged. Again he stuck the pry bar between the halves of the doors and, after bracing up, pulled with all his might. The door didn't move.

"Aka-aki-shiro Hei," He stumbled over her name, "the door is jammed. I'm going to need a hand."

Scout Ship - Bridge

Tankyusha stood, the wires from his BANGLE quickly retracting as he did so. He began to search over the bridge while he considered the options.

The ship's self-destruct was stopped.
Ship belongs to old fleet; data missing.
The ship's AI is missing.
Evidence of a boarding action is clear.
At least one Yamataian body remains.

He tapped a finger idly on the console in front of him.

Prior crew had to be leaving in a hurry - they wouldn't leave crew bodies behind or leave the ship intact otherwise.
Missing AI suggests it had information that would be dangerous in enemy hands. Fleet coordinates or destination? Other?
Ship wreckage on Splorfin III, possible escape vessel?
Yui-class scouts do have the capacity to carry a small shuttle. Unsure if wreckage matches shuttle.

The android headed for the ship's shuttle bay. It was one step closer to verifying. "Hypothesis:", he began over the radio, "ship was carrying sensitive information. This ship was being boarded, so they took what they could and left. This ship has the ability to carry a single shuttle, which they used as an escape vehicle. While departing, the crew noticed that one of the enemy was attempting to stop the ship's self-destruct sequence. One nekovalkyrja volunteered herself to see to the ship's destruction. She failed. The shuttle departed, but was likely hit in the escape - it crashed shortly thereafter on Splorfin III."

He frowned a moment, then added, "I don't have enough information to confirm any of that at this time."

Tankyusha slipped into the shuttle bay, curious if he'd find a missing shuttle or the remnants of six power armors.

Portside corridor

Tsuguka exited the corridor and re-sealed the hatch whilst she thought about the damage, and what it meant to the overall picture. Both Dirjon's and Tankyusha's analysis were patiently listened too, but it was clear that that they were all still missing something.

"Portside generator nacelle is full of holes. The innards are completely wasted. Looks like they were shot from behind." She spoke as a cold statement of facts, avoiding using names or titles just this once, and welcoming the continued open speculation. "Concurrent holes in the kitchen section are in line with this... I would hazard I guess there was a surprise attack or ambush that disabled their CFS and shields. Insufficient information to tell if the shields were actually up or not at the time of the attack..."

"Updated suggestion." She was drifting back to the central portion of the ship now, and had made it as far as the medbay. "Is it possible that the crew were desperately trying to sabotage the ship whilst the enemy was already on board? Did they try and kill themselves to avoid being taken prisoner?... The mishhuvurthyar would not have sabotaged it like this. If they didn't want it, they could have simply blown it up with their weapons, or crashed it into the gas giant..."

"...Well, not unless...."

"Away team, please keep your eyes open for any signs of traps."

Cargo Bay

By the time she finished her research, the pile of clothing had been successfully sorted, scanned and cataloged. The captain was too busy to weigh in on what should be done with the items, so she stored them in a smaller cargo container for the moment. Hopefully the majority could simply be destroyed, and a few of the ones in better condition returned to Yamatai as historical evidence of the fleet's encounter here. Names for the missing soldiers whose uniforms hadn't been found had been easy enough to clear up, once she'd determined the unnamed ship they'd all had in common. It was only registered by number, but she had a feeling the captain would want something more poetic to label it when tagged with this encounter.

"I wonder if they've given up on the rest of the junk now that they have that ship to explore." Mitsuko pondered aloud to Victory, as the two were left without any more cargo to receive. "That weapon still needs to be handled. I guess that can wait until after...an entire Yui-class ship is quite a find." She hmmed, memory jogged. "Now I can't help but wonder what became of that other ship we hauled back to base..."

Starboard Corridor::

Akiashiro was feeling uneasy about the whole thing. As she listened to the others, she thought back to her UOCPF privateer days. She moved to Dirjon to help him pry the door open. Then wandered off after getting the door open she was fingering her rifle while she kept her finger off the trigger.

Aikiko giggled suddenly forgetting she was transmitting on tactical. It was all making sense to her. Where would she put the trap? All the gimme’s were found. In relation with the Gas Giant this was the closest object in a deteriorating orbit along with a lot of the junk. With the mass of the Eucharis and the Scout ship combined and the pull of the gravity of the Gas Giant would increase the rate of attraction for the demise of both ships.

“Age old trap using physics to trapped the Salvager interest of history and salvage prestige of both historical find and earning the top credit for the find. It’s a common trick of eliminating competitors that are way to powerful than you are. So you set up bait such as this old guy here along with choice pieces of salvage to sucker your prey in. Then get them fixatated on the Gimme traps as Auto-destruct, missing AI’s. And dead zone traps as holes in the hulls. If there is no explosive hull debris inside the ship hull. It means that the ship was breeched from the inside out. Sooooo….. longer we are on this ship better our chances to be trapped by the Gas Giant.”

A slight pause, "of course you'll can just ignore my rambling of a unbalanced mind." Gives a slight chuckle as she moved through the ship, looking into rooms at random that she can access with ease. Paying close attention to the armory where the weapons were stored if there was any around still.

Eucharis - Bridge

Natsumi sank into her chair a little more. There was nothing for her to do but watch the sensors and make sure the auto pilot kept the Eucharis in the exact spot it was, which it did without fault. The Shosho had gone off to adventure on the derelict ship, all the rest of the crew was off EVA exploring the wreckage floating around them, leaving just the new Nepleslian soldier on the bridge with her, who even had control of all her guns. She sighed, she was just a bus driver now.

Dreams of charging into battle with the guns blazing under the control of her fingertips were evaporating fast and now she was really alone. No one she knew was on the ship at the moment, just this new person who had taken her guns. She missed her friends, Misato, Sienna, Chieko and especially her roomie, Bors right at this moment. While they had never talked too much the entire time they shared their cabin, he had always been there, like a steadfast rock that swore a lot. His presence had been comforting.

Natsumi glanced sidelong at Antonia for the briefest of moments, spotting the battle simulation on her computer display and quickly turned her attention back to her own screen, her hands balling up into fists for just a moment before the snowy haired neko forced herself to un ball them, take several deep breaths and force her attention back to the sensors display. She could only hope something interesting happened soon to focus her mind on something else.

Shuttle Bay (@Ames)

Until the ship had power again, no air-containing emergency forcefields would be up, so Tankyusha was nearly sucked into space when he opened the door to the shuttle bay. He found the shuttle bay to be devoid of atmosphere, power armor, and the shuttle. The tiny bay's door was missing and the bay was damaged by the same piercing weapons that had torn up other parts of the back of the ship.

Scout Ship - Generator Room - Starboard (@Rizzo @Samanthia)

In the dark space of the generator room, Dirjon could see the aether generator. As with the port one, it had been disconnected by someone prior to the self-destruct command. It appeared to be in good condition.

Scout Ship - MEGAMI Room (@Keiri @Gunsight1)

"I have rebooted the computer," Hanako announced on the team channel. "We can restore ship power now, which will be useful for keeping atmospheric integrity in the damaged rear sections."

Hanako called Natsumi on the Eucharis bridge. "Can you send Sheila Vonderbrink over to the scout ship? We need her to do some hull patching."

Scout Ship, Starboard Generator Room

"Thanks," he said as the door scraped open to reveal the generator standing by for a restart.

Dirjon approached the unit cautiously. When an Æther generator overloads it becomes an Æther bomb and he wasn't going to be taking needless chances. He plugged his data jockey into the port from the MEGAMI to read the data it would be transmitting in case it tried anything explosive. His orders weren't to blow the ship, and himself, to steaming bits.

Once he had the large breaker unit in hand he attached it to the open space in the conduit with a snap and wrestled the lever down to close the circuit. A loud CRACK travelled through the hull as the breaker reset. After a moment of silence the lights came back on. With no self destruct codes being sent from MEGAMI Dirjon gave control of the generator back to the computer.

"Ulvson here, I'm stating the obvious. Any power distribution requests before I unplug?"